03-11-2003 00:03									#91
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Meanwhile, I've found this 'funny' anecdote from the msnbc website:
"A month ago an Iraqi citizen approached some U.S. soldiers, offering to sell a shoulder-held SA-7 surface-to-air missile, the kind that can be use to shoot down commercial airliners. When the soldiers offered the man $250, he drove back with a truckload of missiles and collected a payment of $40,000. He told the GIs that he would have brought more but he couldn’t fit them all into his truck."

A SA-7 being the most likely weapon used against the downed chopper.

	03-11-2003 00:15									#92
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin Meanwhile, I've found this 'funny' anecdote from the msnbc website: "A month ago an Iraqi citizen approached some U.S. soldiers, offering to sell a shoulder-held SA-7 surface-to-air missile, the kind that can be use to shoot down commercial airliners. When the soldiers offered the man $250, he drove back with a truckload of missiles and collected a payment of $40,000. He told the GIs that he would have brought more but he couldn’t fit them all into his truck." A SA-7 being the most likely weapon used against the downed chopper.

So, we tell him we'll buy him a bigger truck too.

	03-11-2003 00:17									#93
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin ... and if they are not so lucky, they'll just pop up again as soon as the US Army leaves.

30,000 troops in one city will do a fairly good job of securing it and shutting it down. They won't take a **** without us knowing when, where and what color. And by the time we left, they wouldn't have anything left to fight us with. Turn it in and sell it to us, we'll buy, **** with us, and we'll take it and arrest your asses. Resist, and you're one dead mother****er.

	03-11-2003 00:20									#94
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Ask the IDF, they have been up to that kind of jobs for decades.

	03-11-2003 00:22									#95
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And have been failing miserably.

	03-11-2003 00:23									#96
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I know! Lets build a wall around the sunni triangle!

	03-11-2003 00:25									#97
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin Ask the IDF, they have been up to that kind of jobs for decades.

They haven't had the kind of manpower available, and have an issue of porous national borders and smuggling that we don't have.

	03-11-2003 00:27									#98
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They don't need to smuggle things in, yet.

	03-11-2003 00:28									#99
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Our aim should be to create that need, by massive search and secure operations to rid them of the means of significant resistance.

	03-11-2003 00:30									#100
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Then you'd need both those extra troops you talked about to do search-operations and troops to guard the borders.

	03-11-2003 00:38									#101
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"porous national borders"

No porous Iraqi borders?

	03-11-2003 00:40									#102
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Only the ones against Saudi arabia, Iran and Syria.

	03-11-2003 00:45									#103
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin Only the ones against Saudi arabia, Iran and Syria.

None of which are particularly convenient to the Sunni triangle for purposes we're interested in.

	03-11-2003 00:47									#104
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They'll find their way.

	03-11-2003 00:49									#105
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Aha, so you don't think the sunni triangle has porous borders?

	03-11-2003 00:50									#106
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler "porous national borders" No porous Iraqi borders?

If they want to drive a truck convoy with AAM's, RPG rounds and plastic explosives down a main highway, I suppose we could afford to fill in the craters and repair the roads after the fact. And I'm sure we could find a way to express our "gratitude" to whichever national government allowed such a convoy to pass from it's borders.

If Abdul the goatherd wants to walk one at a time over, that's a samll enough flow that trained Iraqis can handle, and not a large enough flow of materiel to threaten the US mission.

	03-11-2003 00:52									#107
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It will still be enough for a terror campiagn. And that's all it will take.

How high is your loss tolerance? I would have said 2000-5000 dead until withdrawal, though maybe less now...

	03-11-2003 00:53									#108
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin Aha, so you don't think the sunni triangle has porous borders?

Lots of nice open desert, except for that nearly impassable marshland between the rivers, and lots of nice checkpoints along the roads. Plus the majority of people outside the Sunni triangle aren't fond of the *******s located primarily in the triangle, so the number of people who will risk their lives helping *******s who are their former oppressors is likely to be considerably less than the number of people who won't mind earning rewards for helping us burn the *******s.

	03-11-2003 00:55									#109
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"Plus the majority of people outside the Sunni triangle aren't fond of the *******s located primarily in the triangle"

Depends on the level of hatred you will have built up by then.

	03-11-2003 00:58									#110
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler It will still be enough for a terror campiagn. And that's all it will take. How high is your loss tolerance? I would have said 2000-5000 dead until withdrawal, though maybe less now...

the Iraqis can handle the terror campaign aspect in time. You can't reliably prevent somebody from blowing something up in Vienna, if they're so inclined, and we can't achieve perfect security either. We just need to starve off organized resistance to a point where the locals' security forces will be able to handle the smaller scale stuff.

Right now, there's no need to go outside for your shopping list, because anything you want can be had by the ton all over Iraq. That's the large scale problem we need to handle aggressively.

As far as loss tolerance? It depends on the 2004 election.

	03-11-2003 01:00									#111
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"the Iraqis can handle the terror campaign aspect in time."

I have serious doubts on that, to put it mildly.

	03-11-2003 01:00									#112
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler "Plus the majority of people outside the Sunni triangle aren't fond of the *******s located primarily in the triangle" Depends on the level of hatred you will have built up by then.

Outside the triangle, we don't seem to be building up very much. Inside the triangle, it's a mixed bag, with a lot of different reactions to us and reasons for those reactions.

	03-11-2003 01:01									#113
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The shiites want you out too, don't you think? They're just a tad more patient...

	03-11-2003 01:01									#114
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler "the Iraqis can handle the terror campaign aspect in time." I have serious doubts on that, to put it mildly.

Well, ultimately, they'll be the ones getting blown up, so they'll be incentivized. I'm just concerned with completing our phase.

	03-11-2003 01:02									#115
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler The shiites want you out too, don't you think? They're just a tad more patient...

Oh, of course. But we can buy them off for a while.

	03-11-2003 01:04									#116
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"Well, ultimately, they'll be the ones getting blown up, so they'll be incentivized."

Or look the other way for a little bakshish.

	03-11-2003 01:04									#117
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This event must be the largest victory for the Iraqi resistance so far.

	03-11-2003 01:06									#118
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quote: Originally posted by HershOstropoler "Well, ultimately, they'll be the ones getting blown up, so they'll be incentivized." Or look the other way for a little bakshish.

Bakshish goes both ways. I bet we have a little more in our bank accounts to give away.

	03-11-2003 01:08									#119
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"I bet we have a little more in our bank accounts to give away."

Yeah, if you could only talk to the locals...

	03-11-2003 01:13									#120
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Well, I'm sure our brilliant national leadership had that one all worked out over the last decade or so. The need for arabic language specialists was just sooooooo hard to predict.